Centrifuges for continuously feeding and removing liquid from lubrication-impregnated metal chips or shavings are well known in the art and the teachings in Steimel U.S. Pat. No. 3,366,318 and Dudley U.S. Pat. No. 3,850,814 are representative teachings of such structures. However, the movement of lubrication-free shavings from the discharge at the centrifuge to a distant location is a very slow and cumbersome process usually utilizing energy consuming and high maintenance conveyors or the like to effect such movement. Accordingly, it is desirable to lower the maintenance requirements and to improve the efficiency of movement of lubrication-free shavings, namely metal chips or the like, from the centrifuge to distant locations without necessitating the consumption of additional energy to effect such movement.
It is an object of this invention to use the energy possessed by the chips as they leave the drum to effect a conveyance of the chips to a distant location.
It is a further object of this invention to provide structure on the centrifugal drum, which is rotated at a high velocity to effect the removal of lubricant from the lubrication-impregnated shavings so that a usage of the high velocity of the centrifugal drum will effect the generation of a stream of air in which the shavings are entrained and cause a movement of the shavings to the distant location without necessitating the provision of additional energy consuming devices.
It is a further object of the present invention to specifically provide air moving blades on the centrifugal drum to effect an air movement within the chamber normally provided for collecting metal chips so that the metal chips will become entrained in such air movement and driven out through an outlet duct to a distant location.